A blog expanding on the subjects discussed in our movie "Science Sex and the Ladies." We blog critically on a specific intersection of science, sexuality, and feminism; particularly paying attention to how female sexual response is discussed, portrayed, and studied in our culture. So...if you're interested in science, sex, lady stuff, or indie movie making...this is the blog for you.

1.28.2018

1977 Hustler Review Series Wrap-up: It's Not Great

The Final in the 1977 Hustler Series
This is a wrap-up to a deal I made a couple years ago to SSL Review a Hustler from September 1977. I don't have any more reviews to do in this magazine, but I just feel like I needed to give it a final goodbye. And, I don't mean that in a good way - like because I loved it and I'll miss it or something. I mean it in more of a bad way - because it was gross and sexist and surprisingly racist...with a pedophile edge.

I'll get into that, but if you haven't been keeping up on this particular series - you can find all the previous SSL Reviews (reviews specifically of depictions or discussions of female orgasm, female masturbation or the clit), linked under the magazine section HERE. There were 6 sections in this magazine that included something I could SSL Review, and by far my favorite of those was the Huster XXX movie reviews - because those movies were bonkers.

Anyway, I started this because a fab lady named Jill Hamilton who writes the Cosmo Sex Position lists - like a fucking Orgasm Equality Hero btw- and a blog called In Bed With Married Women, which you will not regret reading, had a give away. We just needed to tell her what we'd do with it. I saw this vintage Hustler, and I promised to both SSL Review it cover to cover and to also masturbate to it. She chose me, and thus it began.

I didn't masturbate to it. It feels like I'd mess up some kind of karma if I rubbed one off to it. It doesn't deserve me. I liked seeing it though and seeing what it was like in a late 70's Hustler. I enjoyed doing the reviews too.

BUT....It was, as I said above, gross and sexist and surprisingly racist...with a pedophile edge. I normally put pics in these but, well, no, not for these. Here's some of the terrible-ness:

Chester the Molester. I honestly didn't know Chester the Molester was reoccurring cartoon in Hustler. I remember I babysat at this house across the street. Their last name was Chester, and me and my BFF called them Chester the Molester - just because it rhymed and we had heard that term before, I guess? Anyway, I'm not going to put a picture of it in here because I wouldn't feel right replicating the image for prosperity, but let me just describe it. It's a full page. Chester the Molester is an older white dude with white hair and a creepy smile. He's got a Nazi band around his upper arm. He's in a city in the foreground of the picture hiding around the corner of a building. Behind him and on the sidewalk next to the building a mom, dad, and a little girl are waiting to cross the street. Chester is not visible to them. They are clearly Jewish and in a Jewish neighborhood because the girl has a star of David necklace. The dad has a yarmulke, and there's a Hasidic Jewish man walking in the background. The noses are ridiculously over drawn for a little extra racism. Chester has a string attached to a dollar that he is pulling from around the corner and the girl is chasing it towards where he is hiding. In his other hand he has a bat raised ready to get her. Oh, and there is piss and shit on the sidewalk. That's it. That's the comic - the whole comic. Can I just ask Whyyyyy? It's not comedic. It's super racist. I don't really know what to say, but why?... and why a full page devoted to it, Hustler? You wrong.

They probably have alternative motives for selling a kid's sex ed book. There'sa page titled "Hustler Books and Movies." It's got 5 little sections of different sex books and/or sex reels to order; one on masturbation, some little "dirty" comics, some explicit sex position photo books, a book series on modern sexual behavior that has "lots of full color explicit photos", and then a book called Show Me! with 2 pre adolescent shirtless children on the cover. It's supposed to be a sex ed book for your kids, and checking with wikipedia it is a sex ed book for kids- although a controversial one because of its explicit drawings. Buuutttt, again, I need to ask why they got that damn thing on that page? A book that was, at the time this magazine came out, being banned in some areas as child pornography? Even if it really was meant to be just a very straightforward book for kids, it is clearly being marketed on the down low in this Hustler as a way to look at drawings of naked kids, right? I'm not crazy?

There's another racist, nose-related comic, but it's only an 1/8 of a page this time and no potential molesting insinuated. It's also not funny.

Um there's a huge, several page-long comic with a really racist-ly drawn black football team. Their dialogue in it is also quite racists. They're having lots of sex, and there's some famous people in it too. It's pretty bad.

There's a big ol' article on child prostitution with a totally inappropriate cover page. It's pretending to be some kind of deep journalistic look at the problem of child prostitution, but it's really just a horseshit article. The really gross part, though, is that the front of the article is a 2 page spread of an almost pubescent girl, blond hair and innocent blue eyes, sitting on a bed in a dank motel room holding money. She's completely naked to the point that we see her vulva. Like....whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Did they feel like sexualizing a little cartoon girl in a story about child prostitution was good idea journalistic integrity? Is that why they made sure her legs were open enough to see everything? Come on, Hustler. Jesus Christ.

The rest of the grossness is just your average hardcore magazine grossness. I think I hit the worst above, but rest assured, there's stuff in there you could live without.

So, that concludes my Hustler September 1977 Review Journey. I am going to throw it away now. I think mid-nineties Penthouse is next. Hopefully it's at least a little less racist, although I'm not holding my breath.